school

(Is is the middle of my sabbatical? The exact middle? I don’t know. I don’t want to know. If it’s more than halfway done, I’ll be sad. Okay, I don’t think it is. But it’s close. That’s okay! As long as it’s not actually halfway over. It’s not. Whew.)

I want to open with this really exciting work thing – I know, I’m not even working! But I haven’t been able to talk about it until this month. Ages ago, I mentioned to our marketing team that sewists use WordPress.com for blogging about sewing a lot. And they paid attention, particularly my friend Michelle, who is on the editorial team and is one of the most amazing and funny and coolest people I know. We chatted a bunch about it at a lunch at the GM, and then she brought it up at one of their meetings. And things led to things and I told her about The Sewcialists website, and then they created this really amazing list called the Anything is Possible list, and look, I don’t want to take too much credit, but I mean, I want to take a little credit, but who ended up on the list but The Sewcialists! And check out this video, which gets me choked up every.single.time!

On the other hand, yesterday was a horrible, terrible, not good, very bad day. The van has been not wanting to start sometimes for a while, but it always would start after a little while with some prodding. (I feel bad now that I never named it.) Yesterday, it just wouldn’t. After some coaxing and sweet talking and banging on some parts, and trying to jumpstart it, I finally gave in and had it towed to the mechanic. Fingers crossed it’s not too expensive. I’d just like one more year out of it. At least. George’s car only has one more payment, and it sure would be nice to have no payments for a while, eh?

When I came home from bringing the boys to the bus stop (where it died, which was not convenient) I found that Ziggy had snuck into my bedroom and was curled up on my bed, which was cute. But the puddle of pee on my bedskirt, where he has peed a few times now, was most decidedly NOT CUTE. Taking the bedskirt off a king bed to wash is not fun, but I’m looking forward to putting it back on even less. Argh.

One positive part of the day was taking the ferry across the river to the aquarium to see Linus giving a presentation with a group of his classmates on the Gulf of Mexico. Thank goodness we got in for free again. The aquarium costs THIRTY DOLLARS if you don’t have a membership. Ridiculous.

Anyway, while I was at the aquarium, the school nurse called. Of course. Because Miles’s asthma was flaring up. Of course. Fortunately, she was able to get it under control. But I stressed hard about that for the next several hours.

But that’s enough about yesterday. Today I’m stuck at home so I’m going to tackle the reorganization of the upstairs bathroom. Time to throw out the makeup from my wedding, finally. Ha ha! I kid! Um yeah! For sure, totally kidding!

What else has happened? Well, the Saints game. I’m not even going to talk about that. I made some scarves with pockets and sold them to neighborhood moms and, well, I guess I won’t be selling any more until next fall. But they are super cute. I’m going to try some Mardi Gras prints next. The pockets are super handy!

Black and gold Art Deco – $22

hidden zipper pocket!

Also.

Linus had a disgusting bump on his arm and we had to get it…dealt with. (Any other words I could use in conjunction with that are too gross.)

Soccer started back up for the spring.

gotta tackle the dining room next. eek

We went to visit Granny and Grandpa, and the boys are very very very close to being as tall as them.

My kitchen is still clean from Kiki’s visit! And yes, I have cooked!!! (and yes, that is clean!)

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Every year at the boys’ school, they spend time outside of the school building doing cool stuff and learning and whatnot. For instance, a month at the zoo in first and third grades, a couple of weeks at an art museum in second grade, a few weeks at the French Quarter in fourth grade, and now in fifth grade, four weeks (spread throughout the year) at the aquarium. And in the final week, they get to snorkel in the giant tank! HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!? I mean, when I went to elementary school, we went to like, the state capitol building. And that’s only because we lived in the state capital. Snooze.

(And yes, they go to public school, so you can’t say it’s because we spend a ton of money on tuition.)

The tank is full of piranha and sharks and other dangerous and deadly creatures, which just adds to the excitement. Naw, just kidding. But it’s got a big coral reef and a tunnel you can walk through, which gave us a good view of the snorkelers from below, and plenty of smiling stingrays (but not the kind that kill you, presumably. And if they do, don’t tell me until the other two have their snorkeling trips later this year.)

Before the kids got in – just what the lower part of the tank looks like. LOOK IT’S MISTER RAY, THE TEACHER!I love this picture of Linus floating.

Okay, now just a bunch more.

Some video – sadly, I didn’t get anything of Linus and his pal flossing underwater. SORRY.

And yes, you will get two see two more identical posts in the coming months. Complete with unidentifiable children that I will assure you are mine, even though I’m not 100% sure because in wetsuits and masks, all kids basically look the same.

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Thank goodness they don’t go to an elementary school because if they were going off to a middle school next year I’d probably be freaking out a lot more. But as it is, they’ll be staying at the same school so it’ll be less traumatic for everyone. (Also maybe less exciting though they will get lockers next year at least.)

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I cannot believe how fast this year went. I mean, this year really went by in a flash. Even the boys thought so. I think partially because they rode the bus and partially because third grade went at a snail’s pace because of whooping cough. But I am already predicting that fifth grade is going to go by even faster because my sabbatical starts in December, so by the time that’s done in March the year will be practically over and OMG MY BABIES ARE ALMOST IN MIDDLE SCHOOL.

First day:

Last day:

Okay, they don’t look that different, except for their hair.

At the bus stop with the girls:

Mary Catherine was excited on the first day about the bus, today was my turn to show my excitement:

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It’s getting to be overwhelming but if I put it off much longer, I’ll just never do it. So I’ll just do it.

The most important thing was my 25th high school reunion, which I already posted a little bit about in my last post, since I wore a bunch of clothes I made to it. But it was more than just showing off my sewing prowess, believe it or not. Getting to hang out in Natchitoches (Na-ka-tish, duh) brings back such fond memories and of course getting to see friends I hardly ever see is so great.

I wish I’d taken more pictures, though. So let me give a quick (?) recap.

Friday, Ren and I drove up, somehow managing to miss major rains and flooding in New Orleans, but not missing the police officer waiting for me to do 51 in a 35 in a small town near Bunkie. (“Let’s take the scenic route,” said Ren. “It’ll be nice,” said Ren.) Continue reading →

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Last week I went on a field trip with Oliver’s class and brought a camera. Here are some pictures I took of things besides 10-year-olds (except my own, of course.)

The program is called Earthkeepers and they teach it at the Jean Lafitte National Park (the Barataria Preserve in particular, I think) and it’s quite pretty. This all is sounding familiar. Did I blog about it already? When I went with Miles? Well, at least this time I have good pics.

a pretty path through the woodsOllie looking at me like he’s a teenager and I’m an idiotcan you see the spiders?caterpillar!snake!classroom in the woods!Ollie being cute in the hat I made for myself that he stole

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Years that end in 7s have typically been pretty eventful for me. Well, at least two of them have. I spent a good chunk of 1997 in London, which was life-changing for me. And 2007 brought a trio of little clones into our lives. So I expected 2017 to be equally eventful for me personally. I mean, hey, it was also the year I was 42, so expectations were high.

But it didn’t end up being particularly noteworthy, at least not for me. In fact, generally speaking, I’d say it was not a great year overall. But for our family, it was fine. Let’s recap. Continue reading →

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Up bright and early(ish) to go with Stephanie to City Park. We have a mutual friend who works there, and she needed people to be in the background at the amusement park for promotional materials for a Christmas event. Let me tell you, it’s not easy to find Christmas accessories at this time of year. Normally I’d be grateful for that. But not when I really needed it.

ANYWAY, Big Lots came through for us and I picked up a few sparkly headbands and light up necklaces.

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I haven’t posted a normal post in a while, just an update on what’s going on in the world. So let’s see…

The boys are a couple of weeks into fourth grade. So far so good. Except they’re not super fond of the bus driver, who is apparently very strict and gruff. Which is exactly how bus drivers should be, I’d say. Well, except for last Wednesday when he forgot that school got out an hour early so we waited at the bus stop for over an hour. Fortunately, the bus stop is the mall, so I dropped into Ulta and made an appointment to get my hair did. Fun colors to come!

Speaking of fun colors, last night, I put in some extra-orange color (blood orange, to be exact) into Oliver’s hair because it was getting too hard to tell him and Linus apart at a glance. Better now. Pics later.

I have a work trip coming up in a couple of weeks, to Whistler again. I’m super excited to see everyone, but the forecast for the next ten days is not making me happy. I need some autumn weather while I’m there, dammit! I’ll get there a few days after the end of the forecast, so all I can say is, a cool front better arrive before I do.

I made pesto (no nuts, George is allergic to most of the ones that would go in pesto) out of the basil I grew this summer. First time it really thrived, probably due to the very wet summer we had. It was not bad, but maybe I’ll put one fewer clove of garlic in it next time (sorry person I worked out next to this morning!)

A good thing this week – Evan and Ellie are in town! I love seeing that girl (okay, both of them, really) and I can’t believe how grown up she is! (Look, we’re both bigger! Hahaha)

2005

2017

Ooops, I went down a rabbit hole looking for old pictures of Ellie and me, and found this…gah!

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I know I use the line from my favorite Christmas song a lot (first time I see Honeycrisp apples in the store, for instance) but in this case, it is so true. Because not only was today the first day of school after a summer with very little camp and a lot of boys staying home rotting their brains while I worked, but it is also the first day of RIDING THE BUS!

Brand spanking new school shoes

YES! No more driving them to/from school! (Granted, we carpooled, so it was normally only one 90 minute round trip a day, not two, but still.) The bus stop is 10 minutes away, and because they get dropped off early and picked up late, I can now fit my entire work day in when the boys are at school! No more coming home at 8:45 and leaving at 3:15. Now I can get home at 7:30 and leave at 4:30. Amazing!

Now, you can see that my standards are falling very rapidly. Since we have to leave for the bus stop just before 7am, I didn’t have time to get my nice camera out, so cell phone photos it is.

Yes, there have been some hair changes. They all got haircuts, and Linus wanted to go blond, and Oliver wanted to go ginger. Linus’s isn’t too dramatic, and Oliver’s looks pink from the front because the purple from before isn’t going anywhere. But it looks better than I expected when he told me he wanted orange hair like Andrew from the Great British Baking Show:

So anyway, we headed to the bus stop where there was a crowd of kids from their school, with more ecstatic parents. The principal even showed up!

Of course I have (not great) photos of the boys getting on the school bus for the very first time…

(But you can see the color of Ollie’s hair better there.)

I think Mary Catherine summed our excitement about the bus best in the following photo: